


Pride and Prejudice

by irrationalgame



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, References to Jane Austen, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:20:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28767717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irrationalgame/pseuds/irrationalgame
Summary: Canon Divergence from Season 4 Episode 8When the Cameronia sinks on it’s return voyage from America, everyone is left waiting for news of His Lordship and Mr Barrow. Jimmy distracts himself by reading an unusual book...
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Jimmy Kent
Comments: 17
Kudos: 73





	Pride and Prejudice

Jimmy huffed and wiped sweat from his brow as he watched the assorted farmers and villagers mill about the lawns. For a church fete it was as boring as _sin_ and Jimmy was hot and tired and _miserable_. Though he couldn’t blame his misery entirely on the fete - he’d been in a slump ever since Mr Barrow had left for America in Bates’s stead, mysteriously taking the valet’s place for a reasons neither of them had been able to suss out.

“Somethings gone on,” Thomas had said around a mouthful of cigarette smoke. “Anna looks like she’s seen a ghost and Bates is even more sad-faced than usual.”

Jimmy nodded; “It all started after Dame Fanny Whasserface—”

“Nelly Melba,” Thomas grinned.

“Yeah, her. Summat’s been up ever since.”

They hadn’t figured out what was bothering the Bates’s and the reason hadn’t mattered in the end; Thomas had gone to America and Jimmy couldn’t begrudge him the opportunity even if he wished it were him instead.

No, not instead, because then they’d still be apart. He wished it were him too. Exploring America with Thomas sounded wild and exciting - he imagined seeing the under-butler’s face as they visited Time’s Square or the Statue of Liberty or saw a play together in Broadway.

Thomas had told Jimmy to find a nice girl from the village while he was away. But he didn’t want a nice _girl_ \- he wanted—

No, it wouldn’t do to think about that now.

So he pulled at his sweat-slicked and suddenly too-tight collar and tried not to think about why exactly he missed the sarcastic under-butler quite so intensely, instead sneaking a few glasses of punch, and playing ( _failing_ ) at the games as a distraction. Carson soon put pot to that plan by sending him to mind the tea tent. At least he was in the shade, even if it was was mindless “Sugar? Milk?” for hours on end. The crowds eventually dwindled and the bloody thing came to an end; unfortunately it didn’t mean the end of the work for Jimmy and he had to struggle across the lawn with fold-up chairs and tent poles until he had grass-cuttings inside his shoes, blisters on his fingers and he was so soaked with sweat he had to escape inside to change his shirt and collar.

He passed Mr Barrow’s empty room - the door was closed, but it had been a long time since that meant he was barred entry. Most of the time he didn’t even knock anymore; Mr Barrow - _Thomas_ , as he allowed Jimmy to call him when they were alone - didn’t mind him coming and going as he pleased as long as he didn’t make a mess. Again, he refused to think about why he barged in unannounced quite so often and what he was trying to achieve by it.

Once he’d walked in and Thomas had been naked apart from a towel around his waist, exposing the creamy expanse of his chest and the dusting of dark hair. Jimmy had stared, his face hot and the tips of his ears burning, until Thomas had blushed, uncomfortable, and pulled on his robe.

They hadn’t ever spoken of it, but Jimmy had found himself pushing into Thomas’s room uninvited much more regularly, and Thomas hadn’t protested.

Best not think about why.

Never think about _why_.

It was becoming a sort of mantra. He felt things and he did things and he never, ever, thought about why. Because the why was absolutely terrifying and Jimmy was a coward.

Thomas was brave and Jimmy was a _coward_.

Thomas had even offered Jimmy use of his little shelf of books whilst he was away in America, which Jimmy had eagerly taken him up on. There wasn’t much to do without Thomas around and he’d already read _‘Around the World in Eighty Days’_ twice, so he decided to sneak in and see if Thomas had any more _Verne_ novels in his collection.

Even after being empty for weeks Thomas’s room still smelled of stale cigarettes and pomade. Jimmy found it oddly comforting; again, he tried not to think about _why_ as he poked through the bookshelf. There were two more Verne novels, which Jimmy took, then he sat cross-legged on the floor and flicked through the rest of the collection; Elliot, Dickens, Poe, and...one Jimmy hadn’t heard of, by a _Jane Austen_ , called _‘Pride and Prejudice’._ Intrigued, he added that to his pile and took the books back to his own room.

After changing he took a minute to smoke a cigarette and flick through the books - he opened the mysterious _Pride and Prejudice_ and read the first paragraph aloud:

_“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”_

He snorted and said; “Not bloody likely,” thinking it was a strange sort of book for Thomas to be reading, and pushed it under his pillow for later. If Thomas deemed it good enough to keep a well-thumbed copy then it was worth the read.

When he made his way back downstairs there was a commotion in the servant’s hall; the entire staff had been summoned and were gathered around the table waiting for a pale-faced Carson to expound whatever it was that had made him look like he’d seen a ghost. Jimmy slipped in between Anna and Alfred and tried to look like he cared.

“Ah,” Carson said, noticing Jimmy had joined the group, “now everyone is here I’ll begin. We have received a telegram informing us the _Cameronia_ was making the return voyage from America when she ran into some difficulty.” Carson paused - Jimmy’s heart started to thump madly against his ribcage. “She sank off the coast of New York, somewhere near Bermuda. We believe His Lordship was aboard.”

The servant’s hall broke out into muttering and gasps of “oh!” at the news. The world tipped on its axis and Jimmy had to hold on to the back of a chair to stop from falling over. He couldn’t take a breath.

“Nothing has been confirmed yet,” Mr Carson said and the room quieted again. “He may well have been on one of the lifeboats - apparently several got away unscathed. Until we know for certain we are to carry on and assume His Lordship is safe and well.”

“And Mr Barrow?” Jimmy said. His voice didn’t sound like it belonged to him at all - it was all high and scratchy and wobbled at the end as if he was about to burst into tears. All eyes turned to look at him.

“If I’ve no news of His Lordship, would it be likely I’d know Mr Barrow’s fate?” Carson scowled as if Jimmy had sunk the ship himself.

“Don’t rats normally jump off a sinking ship?” Bates muttered to Anna and Jimmy, well, _exploded_. He launched himself at Bates and clocked him right in the nose before the man had chance to realise what was happening. Bates didn’t go down but he had to lean heavily on the nearest chair.

“What did you say?” Jimmy spat, squaring up to Bates for another go. He’d get him on his arse this time.

“Jimmy, stop, he didn’t mean—” Anna started, her hands held up placatingly as she tried to smooth things over.

Jimmy did not want to be _smoothed_ over. He wanted to scream and rage and punch anyone in range. He wanted to cry. He wanted to fall down and lie on the floor. He wanted to run and run until his lungs burned and his legs collapsed from under him.

“James!” Carson commanded, “You will stop this **AT ONCE**!” Alfred took hold of the back of Jimmy’s livery so he couldn’t physically get his hands on Bates again.

“Say it so everyone can hear you, eh?” Jimmy hissed, struggling against Alfred’s grip. “Saint Bates, tell everyone what you fuckin’ _said_!”

“James!” Mrs Hughes exclaimed, scandalised by his language.

Bates just held a handkerchief to his nose and managed to look superior even with blood dotting the front of his shirt.

Carson strode over and took a rather painful hold of Jimmy’s arm, then wordlessly frogmarched him down the corridor and into his pantry, slamming the door behind him. He deposited Jimmy into a chair.

“Sit there and do not move!” he ordered. He retreated behind his desk and poured out a large measure of whiskey into a glass, then handed it to Jimmy. Jimmy blinked, surprised, and accepted it.

“You have had a shock.” Carson said, firmly but not unkindly. “We all have. And I imagine if someone had spoken about His Lordship in such a manner I would’ve felt the need to defend his honour too. Though perhaps without using my fists to make the point.”

Jimmy took a very large gulp of his whiskey.

“However, you cannot go around getting into fisticuffs with the other staff. This behaviour is unacceptable and I will not tolerate a repeat performance. Do you understand?”

Jimmy understood well enough when he was being let off lightly and nodded. Carson could have sent him packing for such behaviour, if he’d felt vindictive.

“And don’t write off His Lordship and Mr Barrow just yet. They have both survived war and pestilence; if anyone can come through such an experience alive, it is Thomas Barrow.” He sighed and laid a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. “He has more lives than a tomcat, that one.”

Jimmy downed the rest of the scotch and nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

“You are relieved of duty for the evening,” Carson said. “But tomorrow I want a return to professionalism and for that professionalism to reign until we know for certain that the rending of our garments and gnashing of our teeth is actually necessary. Then, James, if that is the case, I will weep beside you.”

Jimmy was released to his own devices - he couldn’t bear to look at anyone, especially Bates, so he escaped back up to the servant’s corridor. He had meant to go to his own room, but his feet seemed to have other ideas and led him directly to Thomas’s room instead. He hesitated at the threshold for a moment before letting himself in and closing the door.

“What am I doing?” he said aloud to the room, “You’re not dead Thomas. You can’t be,” as if he could speak it into existence if he said it with enough conviction.

But the more he determined to believe that Thomas was fine, the more he managed to convince himself otherwise. Thomas would’ve been in third class, squirrelled away all the way down in the bowels of the ship, and a lone male third-class passenger would be one of the last to be allowed onto a lifeboat, if at all. He didn’t even know if Thomas could swim.

He sat heavily on Thomas’s bed, his fingers curling into the blanket, and took several steadying breaths. If he started crying he wouldn’t be able to stop. And as Carson had said - it might all be a fuss over nothing. His Lordship and Thomas would likely turn up any day, right as rain, and he’d wonder why he was ever worried in the first place.

* * *

The next three days passed in slow-motion and with absolutely no news. Jimmy went about his duties as if he was viewing the world through a warped funhouse mirror - everything looked wrong, twisted out of its usual shape, and out of focus. Noises were either too-loud and jangled his nerves, or muffled and unintelligible like he was hearing them from underwater. At one point he had to ask Alfred to repeat himself three times before the footman gave up trying to talk to him.

Bates neither apologised nor pushed for Jimmy to be punished further, which was as close as Jimmy would get to the self-righteous bastard admitting he’d been in the wrong. Jimmy resolutely avoided him and Anna, but really he was avoiding _everyone_. How could they all carry on eating and chattering when Thomas could be dead? Jimmy had uttered probably a dozen words over the course of the three days, choosing instead to sit in Thomas’s favourite rocking chair and to read _Pride and Prejudice_. It was a stupid soppy book - all faffing about at dances and no one ever said what they really meant - but Jimmy kept turning the pages over as if the book could whisper to him about some great secret of Thomas’s.

The thing was, the book _did_ seem to be revealing secrets, but not only Mr Barrows. Jimmy unwittingly found himself in Lizzie Bennett’s shoes; comparing Thomas to Mr Darcy - aloof, disagreeable, dashing.

 _Dashing_.

Jimmy pushed the thought aside and continued reading; some of the other servants had gathered around the table for a cuppa and a biscuit.

“Do you want to join us Jimmy?” Alfred said, “Or are you going to keep reading your girl’s book and moping after Mr Barrow?”

Jimmy didn’t even look up from his book, but instead gestured rudely at Alfred.

“I don’t understand why you’re so upset,” Ivy twittered stupidly, a teapot in her hands, “he’s probably fine.”

“Wouldn’t be a very big loss,” Alfred said shoving a biscuit in his mouth, “he not exactly _nice_ , is he?”

“For he is such a disagreeable man, that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him,” Jimmy said, quoting the book. Alfred looked at him as if he were loopy. “Oh, shut up Alfred,” he added before the ginger git had a chance to speak, closed his book with a punctuating snap and went outside for a smoke. And no, he didn’t want a sodding biscuit, thank you very much.

In truth he barely ate at all these days, his stomach was too much of a roiling knot and his appetite had sunk along with the _Cameronia_. Even smoking was difficult, the whole act so intimately wound up with Thomas’s very being that it was both comforting and upsetting all at once. But the need to be close, somehow, to Thomas won out over the discomfort that the empty space next to him, where the under-butler normally leaned, created.

To his embarrassment Jimmy had found he couldn’t even sleep unless he lay on Thomas’s bed and pulled the pillow over his face so the smell of tobacco and pomade and _Thomas_ drowned him.

He was coming apart with not knowing.

That evening it struck him, as he lay tangled in Thomas’s bedding, that perhaps he was taking the whole thing a little harder than what could be considered normal between _friends_. But Thomas was his best and, if he were honest, only mate. He’d never had a friend he’d felt so, well, _attached_ to. Most people entered the orbit of Jimmy’s life for a while, drawn gravitationally towards his handsome face and false smiles, until they got to see what lay beneath that charming veneer and then they always drifted away in ever-increasing circles until they vanished entirely.

And Jimmy didn’t care. That was the thing - he really didn’t care. He played along when he felt like it or it suited his purpose, but when people inevitably disappeared from his life he shrugged and moved on. If he even noticed their absence. Jimmy didn’t mind parties or the blokes down the pub or crowds on the whole, but he was dispassionate for people as individuals. He just didn’t have the desire to put in the effort required to maintain a _relationship_.

Except with Thomas. At first their budding friendship had been strained and motivated by the way Jimmy’s irritating newly-found conscience kept beating him raw, much like the way the thugs had beaten Thomas at the Thirsk fair. But it had been easier than Jimmy thought for them to become actual, proper friends - there was no point denying how much they had in common or the fact Thomas was the only sensible, interesting person in the whole damn household, up or down.

Thomas was _different_ , and not just for the obvious reason. He was funny and clever and competent. He was belligerent and sarcastic and uppity. He was kind and thoughtful and caring. And he was the only person Jimmy had ever met who knew Jimmy - really, properly knew him - and still wanted to be his friend. Thomas had stuck around when no one else ever had.

He was the only person who had loved Jimmy outside of his parents, and Jimmy couldn’t for the life of him understand why someone as incredible as Thomas would give him a second glance.

He rolled over but it was no good. He felt sick from exhaustion, but the smell of Thomas was fading from the sheets and they no longer offered the same comfort they had before. Jimmy dragged himself out of bed and clicked on the lamp, the red shade filling the room with a claret-coloured glow, and pulled open Thomas’s dresser. He found a pair of Thomas’s pyjamas, but they had been laundered and only smelled of the same soap flakes that all of Jimmy’s own clothes smelled of. Then Thomas’s robe caught his eye; that probably hadn’t been laundered and had likely been worn next to the man’s skin when he was on his way to and from the bath. Jimmy broke out in goosebumps, pulled the thing down off the hook and wrapped it around himself. It was much too large and almost went around him twice; it was like being enveloped in a Thomas blanket.

For some reason it was the thing that tipped Jimmy over the edge - he sank down into Thomas’s ugly easy chair and gave over to tears. It took everything he had not to scream - he shoved a fist into his mouth to muffle his sobs, not wanting to wake Alfred or Molesley or worse still, Carson.

Thomas was probably dead; drowned. Gone forever. Jimmy felt as if he were the one drowning as he gasped for air between his body-wracking sobs. Thomas - his best friend, his ally, his mentor, his - just _his_. _His Thomas_. The possessive determiner seemed right. For who else was he, if not _Jimmy’s_ Thomas?

He was _his_ Thomas, and he was _gone_.

* * *

On the fourth day a telegram arrived. Carson took it straight upstairs and left the servants hanging for an answer. Jimmy paced and tapped his foot and plonked on the same key of the piano until Mrs Hughes took him by the elbow and physically made him sit down at the table. She poured him a cup of tea, her eyes watching him with worry, her mouth pressed into a white line.

He didn’t drink it.

Eventually Carson came back downstairs to an expectant servant’s hall.

“Finally, the news we have been waiting for!” he declared, “His Lordship is alive and well and trying to book himself passage to return back to us!”

Everyone broke out into relieved chatter, except Jimmy who held his breath and stared at Mr Carson pleadingly until the butler noticed him.

“James - I am afraid the telegram doesn’t mention Mr Barrow. It’s doesn’t say he’s well but nor does it say he _isn’t_ ,” Carson said.

Jimmy was not mollified by that thought. The downstairs lot were so inconsequential to their masters that they likely wouldn’t even notice if one of them dropped dead until no one turned up to feed and dress them.

“Surely His Lordship would have said if something had happened to Mr Barrow?” Mrs Hughes reasoned, as if she’s read his thoughts. “You know what they say; no news is good news.”

It certainly didn’t feel like good news; it felt like _torture_.

So Jimmy did the only thing he could; he carried on, albeit in a bit of a daze, and held on to the vain hope that Thomas was alive. But like an unattended fire, without any evidence as fuel, Jimmy’s hope began to die out and was in danger of being replaced by the lurking bitter cold of grief. He knew it well, having first felt it’s numbing despair when his father was shot by the Jerries at Flanders, and then doubly when the flu ripped his mother away from him in a wave of fever and sweat-wet sheets.

It was a road Jimmy had walked alone and found almost impossible to turn aside from. If he ventured that way again he wasn’t sure he could ever come back.

Thus he kept busy and distracted; the silver in the house had never been so shiny, the shoes never so clean, the liveries never so spotless. He helped the maids with their dusting. He took Isis on long walks, losing himself in the simple pleasure of watching her investigate sights and smells only she could perceive. He organised the china cupboard. He took inventories of everything imaginable. He worked and worked and worked until he fell into Thomas’s bed so wracked with bone-deep exhaustion he slept like the dead.

And when he didn’t work, he read. _Pride and Prejudice_ was, strangely, growing on him, and he found it easy enough to get lost in the gentle misunderstandings and romance of _Longbourn_ , _Netherfield Park_ and _Pemberly_. It was a distraction, and most of the time it was a good one.

Except occasionally the similarities between Darcy and Thomas were so great it made Jimmy’s heart flutter in his chest and his stomach turn over. Jimmy wasn’t sure if he loved or hated the book. Perhaps both, in equal measure.

* * *

It was late - too late for someone who was destined to be woken at six - but Jimmy was still up, draped over the ugly armchair in Thomas’s room, wrapped in Thomas’s gown, _Pride and Prejudice_ open in his lap. He was, regrettably, nearing the end - he both wanted to find out how everything was resolved but also had a strange sort of longing to eke the book out a little longer as he was loathe for the distraction to be finished.

He turned another page. He could always read it again.

An hour passed, then two - Jimmy was helplessly lost in the tale, and gave a great gasp of “Bloody finally!” when Darcy proposed again and Lizzie accepted. He smiled despite himself; what fools they’d both been to be so in love and not really have known it. Although, he supposed, Darcy _did_ know it first but went about it all in such a deplorable way that he’d pushed the woman he loved away. He read on:

_”None at all. We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.”_

_“I do, I do like him,” she replied, with tears in her eyes, “I love him. Indeed he has no improper pride. He is perfectly amiable. You do not know what he really is; then pray do not pain me by speaking of him in such terms.”_

Again, Thomas loomed large in his mind. The way the other staff - and probably the upstairs lot too - viewed Thomas was not unlike the common opinion of Mr Darcy; proud, cold, unpleasant. But Jimmy had something in common with Lizzie Bennett - he saw the truth that lay beneath the haughty veneer. Thomas too was perfectly amiable, or more precisely, just _perfect_ , and it hurt Jimmy to hear others speak of him callously just as it pained Lizzie.

Because Lizzie loved Darcy.

Jimmy had to put the book down on Thomas’s dresser.

Lizzie _loved_ Darcy.

For a moment all Jimmy could do was listen to the blood rushing in his ears and try to breathe - it was as if all the air had been drawn from the room and replaced with treacle. He thought he might pass out or at the very least vomit, but he did neither; instead he stood and went to Thomas’s nightstand and splashed his face with water. He stared at the face in the mirror - he looked no different to how he remembered himself; honey-blonde hair teased into a curl on his brow, blue eyes flecked with silver, a mouth perhaps a shade too pretty for a man, but pretty nonetheless. He was Jimmy still, at least on the outside. Whether he remained Jimmy inside was another matter.

Was he still himself if he were to admit that like Lizzie Bennett, he had unwittingly fallen in love with his own Mr Darcy?

He collected the wretched book from the dresser and read on at a pace, hoping for some sort of answer as to how and when this had happened to him. As if it had been written for this purpose Lizzie asked the very same question of Darcy, who answered:

_“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”_

Jimmy sank down into the armchair, deflating like a punctured tyre. He cast his mind back over the year since Thomas and he had become friends; there was no eureka moment, no definite juncture where Jimmy could say that one minute he hadn’t been in love and the next he had. It had instead been like a very slow dawn, where the sunshine of realisation had crept up and up in the sky, illuminating the landscape of their relationship a little more with each look, each act of intimacy, each minute they spent together, until now, where it was as bright and obvious to him as the August midday sun: Jimmy loved Thomas.

He _loved_ Thomas and he was in the middle before he’d ever known it had begun. He loved Thomas and, typically, was only realising it now when the man was out of reach - possibly forever.

He loved Thomas and he might never get to tell him.

The weight of it all became too much to be borne and he gave over to weeping.

* * *

The next week was the worst of Jimmy’s life. Each night he resolved to just _stop_ being in love - to get over Thomas, to push away the yearning ache that had taken up residence in his chest, to rid his mind of thoughts of how the under-butler’s lips might feel against his or how his hands would likely clasp the back of Jimmy’s neck as they kissed or how their bodies might slot together, Thomas’s pale, broad one against Jimmy’s smaller, sun-kissed frame.

He might as well have resolved to stop breathing or for his heart to stop pumping blood around his body for all the good or did him. Instead, he found he woke each morning more in love than the day before and more sure he’d die from it if he couldn’t be with Thomas.

He was exhausted and terrified and barely hanging on to hope; his sanity tied up with it. If he lost one the other would surely follow.

Seven days after Lord Grantham’s telegram arrived, they were gathered around the servant’s hall table for lunch. Jimmy couldn’t face food and was distracting himself from thinking overmuch by picking the crust off his sandwich and making a little pile of crumbs on the edge of his saucer. The chatter around the table was subdued, as it had been ever since the news of the _Cameronia_ had turned everything upside down. Carson was yet to join them, engaged in some activity upstairs.

“Jimmy,” Anna said, her plain little face all honest concern despite the fact he’d recently assaulted her husband.

“What?”

She frowned at his rude tone. “We don’t know. There’s always hope.”

Jimmy couldn’t even be bothered to answer her. Hope was dangerous and duplicitous - hoping was what threatened to pull him apart, and what was keeping him together.

Carson bustled in, beaming from ear to ear in a most unbecoming way, and everyone rose to their feet.

“His Lordship is back!” Mr Carson crowed. “He’s just arrived this minute, no-one knew he was coming - Her Ladyship is all a flutter!” He looked to be all a flutter himself.

“Wonderful news,” Mrs Hughes clapped. “I knew they’d be alright.”

Mr Carson stilled, his face dropping into something much more somber. “The thing is,” he said, “I’m afraid his Lordship was alone.”

Silence.

Jimmy couldn’t breathe. He had to desperately rip off his white tie and pop his collar open as his vision greyed and his legs gave out from under him. Then Alfred was hoisting him up under his armpits and putting him into the rocking chair and Baxter appeared from somewhere with a glass of water.

“I suppose you did actually ask after Mr Barrow?” Mrs Hughes said to Carson.

Carson shook his head. “There wasn’t the opportunity. But there was no one in the car with His Lordship.”

“Then we don’t know,” Baxter said, “we don’t know he’s not coming back.” But she was crying. Embarrassingly Jimmy found he was crying too.

“Then where is he?” Daisy asked, her voice quivering.

“He can’t be. He can’t be dead.” Jimmy sobbed. Baxter held on to his elbow. “It’s not fair.” Then, without thinking about the fact he was in the servant’s hall and anyone might hear him; “I love him.”

Baxter gave a sad little grimace; “Oh, Jimmy.”

The assembled staff had gravitated towards where Jimmy was collapsed in the chair, as if he were the central point of all their grief. Daisy cried on Mrs Patmore’s shoulder and Alfred knelt down beside Jimmy to offer him a handkerchief. Mrs Hughes and Anna were both teary-eyed and even Bates had the decency to look pained.

Jimmy couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He stood up without warning, startling Baxter and knocking Alfred onto his backside.

“I can’t,” he said, his voice breaking, “I can’t. I can’t.” And he fled, several voices calling after him as he ran down the corridor, up the stairs and to the sanctum of Thomas’s room. He fell face-first on to Thomas’s bed and _wept_.

* * *

Thomas paid the taxicab driver and made his way around to the servant’s entrance with the few meagre belongings he and his Lordship had left. He grimaced, annoyed to have lost his second-best suit and several books to the Atlantic Ocean. Well, he was alive at least, and that was something to be grateful for. Not everyone had been so lucky.

He tried not to think about it too much - those poor bastards from third who’d been trapped by the flooding of their deck and had succumbed - but it had been difficult to avoid such thoughts whilst confined to a ship for the duration of the voyage home, with nothing but choppy blue-black water on all sides, and he had woken more than once with a sheen of sweat over his face, gasping for air.

For once he wished to have swapped places with Bates. The trip to America, modern and interesting as it was, was not worth a bloody near-drowning.

Some idiot had left the blue servant’s entrance door open, so he let himself in and hung up his coat and hat - there was muffled chatter coming from the servant’s hall. He looked at his watch; of course, it was lunchtime. He dropped the valises in the boot room - he’d send a hall boy or Alfred to take them up later. He was much too tired for it now and His Lordship would be too busy with his no-doubt teary reunion to care.

No one noticed the under-butler slip in to the servant’s hall and stand beside the bell board, bemused at the strange gathering of staff. Daisy was crying and Baxter was leaning on Mr Moseley’s shoulder. He scanned the room for Jimmy, but he wasn’t there.

“Has someone died?” he said, sardonic as ever, and the room fell silent as everyone turned to look at him.

“Mr Barrow?!” Daisy said, her eyes round and childlike. Before he had time to protest she had clamped on to him like some greasy limpet and was hugging him tightly.

“Daisy?” he said, confused, but she didn’t answer, choosing instead to squeeze him tightly. He patted her shoulder awkwardly.

“We hadn’t heard anything about you Mr Barrow,” Mrs Hughes said, smiling, “and when his Lordship arrived alone we assumed the worst.” Her eyes were wet as if she’d been weeping. Over _him_.

“Oh,” he said, shocked they’d noticed, let alone _cared_. They all seemed to be somewhere between upset and relieved - even Bates was smiling at him fondly, despite having somehow gained two black eyes in Thomas’s absence. “I sent Jimmy a telegram, didn’t he get it?”

“No, he didn’t get your telegram,” Baxter said, “what happened?”

“His Lordship and I were in one of the lifeboats and got towed back to New York. I sent him a telegram then, when his Lordship sent one upstairs, as there was a bit of a delay whilst we found passage on another ship because every Tom, Dick and Harry was trying to do the same. His Lordship ended up having to pay for me to have a second class cabin just so we could get back.” Then, because he couldn’t stand it any longer; “Where’s Jimmy?”

Several meaningful glances were exchanged between the staff.

Daisy finally released her hold and said; “He ran upstairs. He were - very upset Mr Barrow. _Very_.”

Thomas blinked. Oh. Jimmy thought he was _dead_ and had been so overcome with emotion he’d had to flee? It seemed very unlikely for Jimmy to be so outwardly sentimental.

“You best go and put him out of his misery,” Mrs Hughes said, “the poor lad was beside himself.”

Thomas nodded, suddenly very anxious, and turned on his heel and left. The corridor seemed miles long, climbing the staff staircase akin to trekking up Everest, his heart thudding in his ears the whole way. He went straight to Jimmy’s room - the door was ajar but the room empty. Thomas stood in the corridor, wondering where Jimmy would go, when he heard crying. No, _sobbing_ \- heart-wrenchingly desperate sobs - coming from his own room. He opened the door and slipped in - sure enough, Jimmy was lying face-down on his bed, weeping so hard his whole body shook with it.

“Jimmy?” Thomas said, his voice barely more than a whisper. He wished for a cigarette. Or a scotch.

Jimmy gasped, startled, and flew up off the bed, his eyes red-rimmed and wild. “Thomas? Thomas!” He stared for a beat, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly, before he crossed the room and fell straight into Thomas’s arms.

“Hello Jimmy,” Thomas said, “I take it you’re surprised to see me?” He allowed himself put his arms around Jimmy and hold him, just this once. Jimmy had initiated the contact after all. To Thomas’s astonishment Jimmy balled his hands in his jacket and wept into his shoulder.

“They said - I thought - Thomas I thought—” Jimmy managed to say between sobs, “you were dead. Gone and dead and _oh_!” He held Thomas so tightly it was a little painful, but Thomas would happily endure it to have Jimmy in his arms.

“I’m here now - I’m safe. I’m sorry to have worried you. I didn’t know you’d be so upset.”

After a few minutes Jimmy’s sobs quieted but he didn’t make any move to pull away.

“‘Course I was _upset,_ you numpty.” Jimmy said eventually, leaning back enough to fix Thomas with a watery smile. He scrubbed his face with his sleeve, sniffling, his other hand holding Thomas fast. “I thought—” he had to look away and clench his jaw to stop himself breaking down into sobs again. “Never thought I’d see you again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologising. You didn’t sink the ship, did you?”

Thomas snorted. “Not even I’m nasty enough to sink a ship.”

Jimmy’s smile ticked upwards towards a grin and he leant his forehead against Thomas’s. Thomas held his breath.

“Thank God you’re alive Thomas. Thank God.”

“Thank Lord Grantham for insisting I went in the lifeboat with him and the steward who was happy to do whatever he asked for a tanner.”

“Thank god for them an’ all then.” Jimmy sniffed and finally released his hold on Thomas, stepping back sheepishly.

“You’re in my room,” Thomas pointed out.

Jimmy nodded and shuffled from one foot to the other. “I was - I’ve been borrowing books.”

Thomas looked around suspiciously at his unmade bed, full ashtray and stack of unshelved books - and then disapprovingly at the small collection of used cups on the dresser. His robe had been left lying on the armchair, the towels from his nightstand on the floor.

“I might’ve,?um, been sleeping in here,” Jimmy admitted. “Sorry.”

Well, that was interesting. “Why?”

“Because I thought—” he had to look away, “you were dead. And I couldn’t—” his bottom lip trembled. “I wanted to be close to your things. To what I had left of you.”

“Oh.” A pause - Thomas’s heart was hammering fast now. He almost didn’t dare to ask it, but something in Jimmy’s expression pushed him onwards to say; “Why?”

Jimmy looked at Thomas as if he were slow. “You know why.”

They stared at each other for a moment, the weight of Jimmy’s words sinking in to Thomas and sparking hope in his chest. Dangerous, maddening, wonderful hope.

“I — I don’t know what you’re saying Jimmy.” He couldn’t be hearing him right. He couldn’t read too much into his words and make the same mistake again. He couldn’t allow hope to grow, only to have to dashed. If he did that he might as well have drowned on the _Cameronia_.

“I’m saying I—” Jimmy’s mouth twisted up as if the words were in an unfamiliar tongue and he needed to roll them around before he tried to pronounce them. “I can’t say it,” he sighed, “I want to say it. Why can’t I say it?”

For once, Thomas didn’t know what to say either.

Jimmy closed the scant space between them and laid one hand on Thomas’s cheek. He was so close Thomas could see each freckle on his sun-darkened skin, each fleck of silver and navy in his blue eyes. Suddenly his expression screwed up then settled into a sort of determined concentration. It was almost funny, the fierceness in his eyes juxtaposed to the nervous way he was gnawing on his bottom lip - Jimmy’s face was always so expressive, for good or ill.

Jimmy took a breath and said, with a strange cadence that was not his own; “In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

Thomas gaped at him like an idiot. Jimmy - his Jimmy - was quoting _Pride and Prejudice_ \- and not only that, but a declaration of _love_.

“Well bloody say somethin’ then,” Jimmy frowned, impatient as ever. “I’m dyin’ here.”

Thomas almost wanted to drag it out and torture Jimmy over it as he himself had been tortured over the years, but no; he couldn’t do that, not when Jimmy’s face looked fit to crumple at any second. And not after he’d had to endure believing Thomas was dead for so long. He ducked his head and broke into a smile so wide it probably caused those blasted boyish dimples to appear in his cheeks. Jimmy beamed back; all perfect teeth and crinkled eyes - a smile he reserved for Thomas alone.

“Blimey,” Thomas said, “I’ll have to almost-drown more often.”

“Don’t joke about it! Not yet at any rate. My heart can’t take it.”

“What does your heart want, Jimmy?” Thomas placed a hand on Jimmy’s cheek, mirroring the footman’s hold on his own face. Jimmy leaned into the touch like a cat who wanted his ears scratching, his eyes fluttering closed.

“You,” he replied.

The hope in Thomas’s chest bloomed, warm and beautiful and he kissed Jimmy, soft and slow and lingering, and the footman fell against him, pressing him into the door as both hands came up to cling to his shoulders. Thomas put a strong arm around Jimmy, holding him up, and let the other hand tangle in the hair on the back of his head, fingers scraping at the nape of Jimmy’s neck. They stayed that way for so long Thomas’s back started to ache - not that he’d ever say so. He’d stand there all day if it meant Jimmy would keep kissing him.

Eventually though the footman broke away to breathe, resting his forehead against Thomas’s.

“You read _Pride and Prejudice_ then?” Thomas grinned and Jimmy huffed out a laugh.

“I did. We owe a lot to Ms Austen.”

“Do we?”

Jimmy nodded, a movement Thomas felt rather than saw. “She was right about so many things it were as if she knew me. But I suppose I’m not the first man alive to be blind to his own mind and heart.”

“One of many, I’d wager.”

Jimmy leaned back and fixed Thomas with a fond look. “She was wrong about one thing though: _‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife’_. Load of rubbish, that. Sometimes a man is in want of an under-butler.”

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone waiting for me to update my WIP I am working on it but this fell into my brain and demanded to be written 😬


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